Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Cognitive Intervention

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder that includes repetitive thoughts and or rituals. Having a life time prevalence rate of 2-3%, this disorder is amongst the fourth most commonly made clinical diagnosis in, out patients department of mental health settings globally. OCD is associated with impairments in overall psychosocial functioning of the patient. Traditionally combinations of behavioural and cognitive therapeutic measures were used to treat patients of OCD. Use of cognitive intervention alone has been the recent trend, which has gained impetus after the popularity of cognitive models of OCD, few decades back. Present study aims to see the role of cognitive intervention on symptoms of patients with OCD. 20 OCD patients were selected using purposive sampling and were equally divided in to two groups using draw of lots method. One group was given 20 sessions of cognitive intervention using Down Ward Arrow or Socratic questioning techniques, spanned over 10 weeks. Pre and post intervention assessment was done for both groups using YBOCS and scores were compared. Results indicate significant reduction in YBOCS scores at post intervention assessment in the group which was given 20 intervention sessions in contrast to the other group. Study concludes that cognitive intervention was useful in decreasing the severity of symptoms in patients with OCD.